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Andy Warhol was a key figure in the ‘Pop Art’ movement that began in the mid 1950s in the UK and emerged in the US towards the end of the decade. Warhol’s influence on the movement, and 20th century art in general, is considerable – both directly, with the many young artists who helped him create works in his Factory, and indirectly, with the legacy of work he produced.
The Pop Art movement, and most notably the work of Warhol, is a clear influence of the non-representational colours I have used in this portion of my project. The colours most associated with Warhol’s work are bright and striking, a look I have attempted to reproduce with these images.
Not only did Warhol’s works often depict mass-market products but he also wanted the works themselves to be massed produced. This blurring of the line between fine art and commerciality is particularly relevant to the advertising industry that I have looked at later in my project.
Again the above photograph was produced for the tasks at the beginning of this module but I have included it again here as it was the beginning point of experimentation with this and similar editing techniques.
To create this image, I have combined a photograph I have taken of some electricity cables running alongside a road at the edge of a rapeseed field with another image of a man walking down a road. To create this other worldly looking image I created four layers, the sky, the road, the field and the cables and I applied the torn edges filter to all of the layers but altered the colours differently on each. The blue and the yellow combination work well as they are close to the yellow of the rapeseed and the blue of the sky. I then selected the man and his shadow from a separate photograph using the magnetic lasso tool and added him to this image as another layer. Using the free transform tool I then resized the man and placed him on the road to make it look as though is walking down the road. I kept the man looking real whilst heavily editing his surroundings in order to create an Alice in Wonderland type feel to the photograph. I was inspired to try and create this fantastical atmosphere by the potential for the road to resemble The Wizard of Oz’s yellow brick road.
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This quick experimentation image was created using the same torn edges filter as before, only this time using darker colours. The figure in this image I chose not to keep ‘real’ looking, but applied the same filter with the same colour as the grave next to her. I am not very pleased with this image, the contrasts between the colours are too great and the image is not very clear.
With this image I returned to using lighter colours and introducing nonedited, photographically real, elements to the photograph. The Parkinson building was again edited using the torn edges filter, but this time I inverted the colours in able to retain the blue sky and the detail in the building. The sea gulls are from 3 different images and I have positioned and free transformed them in order to look like they are swooping down towards the camera. I originally removed the lamppost at the right of the image but eventually chose to keep it in as I felt it added to the composition of the image. Although I prefer this image to the last, it feels a little flat with only 2 elements too it.
This photograph was again taken in Cornwall. To the background I applied a stamp filter using black and red. To the seagull layer I used a black and white torn edges effect and in order to add the 3rd element that I felt that last image was lacking i selected the fence and added a glowing edges filter. Because of the red of the background and the eye contact with the sea gull the image looks sinister and holds connotations of danger, it reminds me of the horror film ‘birds’. Unfortunately due to the way I have edited it, it is unclear that the bird is standing on a car and therefore the fence looks like it disappears, the fence has also not been selected as carefully as I could have done it and the glowing edges filter highlights this. The image looks amateur and photoshop has been used to create an unreal and childish looking image.
I really like the composition and unusual angle of this photograph, it reminded me of an album cover so I decided to edit the image to reflect this. In order to silhouette the pylon and cables I used a mixture of the selection tools and it took me hours, there are a few imperfections if you look closely at the bottom right of the image. I chose to black out the buildings and trees at the bottom right of the picture as well as block colour the sky a dirty yellow colour. I think the colours are perfect for reflecting an album cover and the dirty yellow also plays on the environmental issues concerning electricity pylons. I imagine if this was used as an album cover the writing would provide important detail, however, on its own the image looks a little flat and boring. With the next two version of the image I experimented with adding texture layers and different colours. I also applied a colour gradient to one of the texture layers.
With this image I returned back to using the two buildings that I used previously. With this image I changed the arrangement of the two buildings and also including the windmill that I used in the previous sunset image. I wanted to demonstrate that, especially living in a city, the buildings that surround us are very imposing. I again applied different texture layers and colour gradients and overlays. On the image on the right I included a brick texture layer to emphasise the presence of the buildings.
Literally just playing with photoshop and the new techniques I have learnt during this module I created this image of my cat. To the cat I applied a blue colour overlay and colour burn blend mode, to the background there are several texture layers and colours gradients. The cat’s hair was very hard to select and looks poor. The image reminded me of the new ipod adverts, which lead me on to my next area of research and experimentation.
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